May 22.—­We returned to our companions, and by taking a W.N.W. course, we avoided all the ranges and gullies that we had crossed yesterday.  At the westerly creek I found a rose-coloured Sterculia, with large campanulate blossoms and tomentose seed-vessels:  the tree had lost all its foliage.  I had met with this species on the rocky ranges of Moreton Bay (at Mount Brisbane), but there it was a low shrub, whereas in this place, and all round the gulf of Carpentaria, it formed a middle sized tree with spreading branches.  A new Hakea, with long thin terete leaves (different from H. lorea) and Grevillea chrysodendron, grew along the creek.  Grevillea ceratophylla (R.  Br.) and another Grevillea, with a compound terminal thyrsus, and long lanceolate falcate leaves, grew on the slopes, in company with a Xylomelum, with smooth and smaller seed-vessels than those of X. pyriforme.  The rocky ridges were occupied by the stringy-bark, fine Cypress-pine trees, the stunted silver-leaved Ironbark, a Eucalyptus, with very scanty foliage, orange-coloured blossoms, seed-vessels longitudinally ribbed, and as large as the egg of a fowl; its butt was covered with a lamellar bark, but the upper part and the branches were white and smooth; also by another Eucalyptus, with a scaly butt like the Moreton Bay ash, but with smooth upper trunk and cordate ovate leaves, which was also new to me; we called it the Apple-gum.  We frequently met with the grass tree (Xanthorrhaea.)

May 23.—­We moved our camp to the westerly creek I had found the day before, which with several others formed the heads of a river, flowing to the N.W.  I called this river the “Lynd,” after R. Lynd, Esq., a gentleman to whom I am under the greatest obligation, for his unmeasured liberality and kindness enabled me to devote my time exclusively to the pursuits of science and exploration.

The nights had been as usual very cold, and the dew very heavy.  The prevailing breeze was from the east, veering towards evening to the north-east; during the morning a cold south-east wind.  The rock was primitive, granite and pegmatite in several varities, with a few exceptions of anagenitic formation.  Near the place of our first encampment on the Lynd, in lat. 17 degrees 58 minutes, I observed a sienite, to which the distribution of the hornblende in layers had given the stratified appearance of gneiss.  Another rock was composed of felspar and large leaflets of white mica, or of quartz and white mica.  The veins which traversed these rocks were all of quartz, which, within the pegmatite, enlarged into big masses and hills, particularly where basaltic rock was near.  Mr. Gilbert and Charley went down the creek to find water and a practicable road, in case the country should prove mountainous and rocky.  I had a view from a small peak near our camp; the country was full of ridges, but openly timbered, and I saw a low range to the northward, trending from east to west.